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Chattanooga businessman and philanthropist George Thomas Hunter was the nephew of pioneer Coca-Cola bottler Benjamin Franklin Thomas. A native of Maysville, Kentucky, Hunter joined his childless uncle and aunt in Chattanooga in 1904, becoming a surrogate son and business heir.…

Tennessee's early white settlers found bountiful supplies of wildlife, including deer, bear, elk, bison, and wild turkey; however, continued westward expansion rapidly depleted these populations. The last two reports of bison were recorded near Nashville in 1795; the last known…

Europeans brought hunting dogs when they began their exploration of the North American continent. Mountain Curs and American coonhounds were the most prominent imported breeds. With the exception of the Plott, all breeds of coonhounds have a common ancestry deeply…

Adam R. Huntsman, attorney and congressman, was born in Charlotte County, Virginia, February 11, 1786, to Jacob and Mary Devine Huntsman. Huntsman attended schools in Virginia before migrating to Knoxville around 1807. There he studied law and was admitted to…

Fielding Hurst, a staunch southern Unionist during the Civil War, led the Sixth Tennessee Cavalry (USA) and proved to be one of the war’s most polarizing figures. An East Tennessee native, Hurst and his wife, Melocky, moved to McNairy County…

Styles L. Hutchins, noted African American attorney in turn-of-the-century Chattanooga, was born November 21, 1852, in Lawrenceville, Georgia. He attended Atlanta University and after completing his studies, taught in local schools until 1871. In that year he became principal of…

In 1902 Mary Grimes Hutchison established a place of learning that today is known as Hutchison School. The Old Love Place on Union Avenue was the site of Miss Hutchison's School for Girls from 1916 until 1925, when increased enrollment…

J. R. “Pitt” Hyde III started the operation that became AutoZone in 1979 as part of Malone & Hyde, a company founded by his grandfather. In 2004, Hyde was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame—an achievement that the institution…

From 1978 to 1997, the annual Memphis in May Festival culminated with vocalist James Hyter's performance at the Sunset Symphony. Each year, audiences sang along with Hyter's rendition of the show tune "Ol' Man River" and repeatedly called for encores.…

The Immortal Thirteen were the Democratic members of the state Senate in the 1841-42 session of the general assembly. These thirteen Democrats maintained a one-seat majority in the Senate, but the rival Whig Party's majority in the House of Representatives…

The popular image of Tennessee is dominated by country music, Opryland, Elvis, the Smokies, Jack Daniel's, and other icons of mass culture. The essence of the Volunteer State, however, is found in its history of hard working people tilling the…

The most serious outbreak of influenza (also known as grippe, grip, or flu) in Tennessee history, with 7,721 recorded deaths from the disease, was the influenza pandemic of 1918-19. What happened in Tennessee was part of an international pandemic, or…

Bronson Ingram was Tennessee's only billionaire when he died of cancer at the age of sixty-three on June 15, 1995, in his Nashville home. His net worth was estimated at $1.3 billion. In 1994 Forbes national business magazine placed Ingram…

Rooted in the close relationship many country-music performers develop with their fans, the multi-day series of concerts, autograph sessions, and fan club parties now known as the CMA Music Festival, formerly the International Country Music Fan Fair, is unique to the country music genre.…

The International Printing Pressmen and Assistants' Union of North America (IPPAU-NA), was organized in 1889, when disgruntled pressmen and press feeders left the International Typographical Union (ITU) and, with the combined membership of thirteen locals, formed a new pressmen's union.…

Organized in Nashville in 1897, the Interstate Cotton Seed Crushers' Association operated from 1897 to 1929. It was the second cottonseed trade association, the first having been disbanded in 1887 after the American Cotton Oil Trust absorbed most of the…

Officially named the Dwight D. Eisenhower System of Interstate and Defense Highways, the interstate highway system has had a profound impact upon the physical, economic, and cultural landscapes of the United States. Most Americans travel the system without thinking about…

Tennessee's nineteenth-century iron industry was located along the Western Highland Rim. Throughout the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, a large part of this upland portion of the Tennessee River Valley, from Stewart to Decatur Counties, produced a high-quality brown iron ore…

The Iroquois Steeplechase, a rite of spring for horse enthusiasts, has been held every second Saturday in May since 1941. The amateur horse races take place at a three-mile course of wood, water, and brush jumps at Nashville's Percy and…

The opening of hostilities between the Confederate States and the United States in the spring of 1861 found both belligerents woefully unprepared for the struggle ahead. Confederate strategists realized that the Mississippi River offered a broad avenue of invasion into…